


The Greatest Thing

by Quizzical



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-29
Updated: 2011-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quizzical/pseuds/Quizzical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Not yet,</em> he told himself. <em>Tonight I’ll just be.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greatest Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2007 at The Quidditch Pitch.
> 
> This was one of my LJ anniversary prompts.
> 
> It was for **abovethestars**. Her prompt was _friendship trio - directly following DH. You know how Harry goes to the common room to take a nap. I would love to see some trio love when he wakes up._
> 
> well i didn't manage the 'lurve' but i think there is Love.
> 
> thank you to my beta: **brumeux77**

~*~

It was night when he opened his eyes. The darkness from more than just the curtains closed around the four-poster bed. All his emotions were waiting, clamouring just off stage, eager for their chance to flood in and overwhelm him. Grief, trauma, anger, relief, pride, gratitude, loss….

 _Not yet,_ he told himself. _Tonight I’ll just be._

He lay and revelled in the expanse of _nothing_ that he had to do next.

He stretched his arms above his head and tried to do the same with his legs, but his feet were trapped underneath something, and a bump beside him dug into his leg. Without his glasses he couldn't see well enough through the inky night to know what made the dark lump at the end of his bed.

Until he heard the familiar sounds that had accompanied sleep for months on end in the dingy tent. Ron snoring, Hermione muttering softly to herself.

A gentle _Lumos_ was enough to put form to the shape. He spared a moment to enjoy the feeling of _his_ wand in his hand - safe, and familiar - before extending it towards his friends.

They were curled up together, lying across the bed, one of Ron’s long legs extended down making the wedge he felt underneath his hip.

In the curious emotional space that surrounded him, he didn’t blush, or look away, or snicker.

Instead he found his glasses, put them on and really _looked_ at them.

His gaze followed the wand light as he directed it from the brown frizzy mane, entangled at one point with hair that showed a hint of its fiery redness in the muted light, down the line of shoulders, torsos, arms folded together, fingers entwined, the curve of hips, legs mostly tucked up almost covering chests altogether.

He looked back up at their faces. His head tipped to one side and he blinked his eyes trying to get a clearer focus in the half light.

In sleep Hermione looked younger. Prettier. Her tidy, even features seeming to belong to someone smaller and more fragile. Nothing here gave away the force that was her personality. Her mind. You couldn’t see the strength of her faith in him in the set of her lips. There were dark smudges underneath her eyes. She frowned slightly and the corners of her mouth twitched down. He wondered what she was dreaming about. Her parents, maybe?

Ron was lying with his mouth open, resting his head in the crook of his arm. The arm that wrapped over Hermione’s waist still showing the silver scars he’d born for the last two years. He tried to superimpose the eleven-year-old boy he’d first met all those years ago onto this man in front of him. The nose was the same. The freckles. The loyalty. He studied him closely, trying to memorise the line of his jaw, the constancy of his friendship.

A thought settled comfortably in his mind.

He loved them.

He sat for a while letting that thought fill him up.

It was the greatest thing they’d done for him. Even when listed with all the multitude of incredible things, it was still the greatest. They had become the centre of his world and his heart had had to expand to accommodate the breadth and depth of it.

And with that thought Harry _Noxed_ the light, lay down and went back to sleep.

 

 

~*~

  


  


  
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

  


This story archived at <http://www.thequidditchpitch.org/viewstory.php?sid=4957>  


  



End file.
